If you would have asked me a year ago, I would have said that an automatic
transmission in a vanagon sucked.
I would have been basing that on repairs i've made to other peoples vans,
as well as reviews/badmouthing of auto trans vanagons.
Then I bought one.

Mind you a Vanagon is the first car i learned how to drive, the first stick
car I learned to drive, and has been my daily for 7 years. I have driven
plenty of "sedans" in that time, most were automatics and I liked the way
an automatic transmission felt. Keep in mind I always consider driving a
sedan to be a very different experience (What's all that crap infront of
you!? AN ENGINE!?!?!)

When I finally got this automatic transmissioned '90GL on the road as my
winter car.... i was blown away! At first, I had bigtime issues. I was
reaching for the clutch pedal constantly. Finally I got used to it. Then
for two months it was my daily and my syncro slept. I began to like it!
Going in town, it's epic. Its significantly faster on acceleration between
0-20 than a manual transmissioned van. Theres a terrible power spot at
about 35 hitting a hill.... it tries to stay in a gear and really should
downshift, but you always can just downshift it yourself.
It grew on me bigtime. Suddenly I have all the joys of a vanagon, the same
"feel", but I don't shift!
It's a better highway cruiser in my mind than my other vans as well.

The day I jumped into my giant lifted syncro from my tiny lowered GL
(automatic) was night and day. Suddenly I have to do all this work to drive
the car! SHIFTING....pfff.... yuck.
I've since regained my joy in the syncro, but I must say, these automatic
vans rock!
I will forever own a giant syncro, and a lowered automatic bus.

Auto+cruise control rocks. The vanagon cruise control can be used at any
speed, so if you're going through a state park for instance and the speed
limit is a slow 25mph, set it! The auto will downshift as needed for hills.

-Craig
'87SUNROOF SYNCRO WESTY BOSTIG
'90 GL

On Sat, May 26, 2012 at 10:04 PM, Tom Boldway <jboldway@hotmail.com> wrote:

> There are two other things not mentioned:
> 1) You can mount cupholders to the side of the automatic shift console ;~)
> and this leaves a free path to walk to the back - kinda hard if you have a
> middle console with cupholders.
> 2) The back of the console makes a great place to mount a Ham or CB radio.
>
> Picture: http://www.pbase.com/spacecommander/image/138872057
> Tom
> '84 Westy "Spiny Norman"
>